We achieved everything we set out to achieve in Townsville plus had brekky in the café/restaurant that is considered no 1 in those parts (Jam). It was a beautiful meal and a lovely spot.
Townsville is a huge city with suburbia very close to town but spreading exponentially. Personally, I'm not a fan of what I've seen of Townsville. At the moment there are roadworks all over town, so its a bit difficult to traverse.
We left Townsville to head to Mission Beach as we weren't sure if we would go any further north. We stopped at Mission Beach for a few days but it rained pretty much the whole time so we didn't get to walk the Dunk Island walk as planned as the water taxi to Dunk wasn't running due to the weather. Bugger.
We did decide, finally, to head as far north as Port Douglas with the view of seeing Mossman Gorge, The Daintree and Cape Tribulation, if possible. Personally I have been suffering from homesickness so going further north was going to prove a struggle for me. However, we were sooo close we didn't want to miss this opportunity.
Next stop was a free camp site that turned out to be terrific. Busy as all hell but we arrived early enough to squeeze in. This site was in Babinda.(on our way to Cairns) Babinda sells itself as the wettest town in OZ. Yes its was very very wet. It rained all arvo and all night. The site is right next to a river that was running and rising quite swiftly, see gallery. The river was also known to have had croc sightings. That made life interesting!
Then it was Cairns for the morning and on to Port Douglas. We are staying right in town at Port D and its really really lovely. The township reminds both Jayne and I of Noosa but I don't think the beach here is as lovely as Noosa.
We are here in PD for 3 nights and we are off touring in Whimsy tomorrow to try and get to Cape Trib. Not sure if we can actually get there as we have to cross over the Daintree River on a barge. Plus, the road up to the Cape may not suit Whimsy...but we are going to give it a shot because Whimsy can do anything......
Will finish this post once we get back from that adventure...